iOS 16 Lets You Unsend and Edit Text Messages: How It Worksl

iOS 16 Lets You Unsend and Edit Text Messages: How It Works

This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2022, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular progenies.

Today’s Apple event
will probable give us the the release date for iOS 16 and the new iPhone 14. One big new iOS feature could dramatically change the way you send text messages on your iPhone.

Live: Our Blog for Apple’s “Far Out” event

If you make a grammatical inaccurate or even text the wrong person, you’ll have 15 minutes to edit the joyful of a message and 2 minutes to unsend and essentially delete a text. We’ll verbalize more about how these two new texting features work in the front-runner below.

And if you’d like to contemplate iOS 16 right now, before the general public descent, here’s how to download and install the novel iOS 16 beta on your iPhone and iPad.

Other new features coming to the iPhone include new lock mask customization options and Apple Pay Later. And SharePlay is sketching added to Messages. 

Edit messages you’ve already sent

If you use messaging tools like Slack, you’ve likely edited at least one — or 100 — of the messages you’ve sent. Whether you made a typo or your communication contains incorrect data, the editing feature is a nice way to make your corrections snappy. With iOS 16, you’ll also be able to edit your messages sent from your iPhone within 15 minutes of sending.

To edit a text message, you’ll need to launch Messages and go into any thread that is amdroll iMessage, which you probably know as blue text. This feature will not work with SMS text messages (green texts). Now, press and hold your finger down on the communication you wish to edit. This will bring up the Tapback reactions and the radiant action menu. Finally, tap Edit. 

Even if you edit a text communication, the recipient will still be able to see any old messages.

Nelson Aguilar

The text communication will then become editable. You can delete the entire communication, fix any mistakes or add more text to it. Once you’re finished, hit the blue checkmark button on the radiant side to save your edits. You can only edit a single communication up to 5 times.

An actionable Edited button will depart underneath your edited text message. The person on the novel end will also know that the message has been edited, and if they tap on Edited, all previous versions of your text communication will appear above the edited text message, in some grayed-out chat bubbles. 

Immediately recall any messages you accidentally sent

Accidental messages remained way too often. Maybe you tapped the send button when you pointed to select an emoji. Or perhaps you messaged the inappropriate person entirely. In either case, you’ll be able to choose those messages with iOS 16. Unlike with the edit communication feature, you only have 2 minutes to unsend a text.

To unsend a text message, launch the Messages app, press and hold down on the communication (blue text only) you want to unsend, and tap Undo Send.

The text communication will disappear from your thread, on both your end and the recipient’s. A message will appear on your thread, stating that your communication has been unsent, but that the recipient may have already seen it.

You only have 2 minutes to unsend a text message.

Nelson Aguilar

Unfortunately, if the other person is running anything older than iOS 16, the communication won’t actually be unsent even though your phone will say that it is.

The recipient will see a gray text region message that says, “[Name] unsent a message” if they’ve already considered the text. This is similar to the Delete Message feature that apps like WhatsApp and Signal already have, which also show a inequity message after a text is recalled.

While you wait for these new features to approach, check out the new makeover coming to Apple Maps. Also, here’s Apple’s new MacBook Air.